Denouement
by alxxman
Summary: Hermione Granger, muggle-born and one-third of the famous Golden Trio, had a secret. Small, inconsequential really. Until the day it wasn't and chaos erupted most spectacularly.
1. Chapter 1

Hello! So this is my take at an actual HP fanfiction, bear with me. It's also probably a little different than what you might expect but then that's the beauty of _fan_ fiction, isn't it?

Anyways, I'm on the fence about this one so please, let me know what you think! xx

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CHAPTER ONE

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"Merlin, 'Mione! You look terrible!"

"Thank you, Ronald. Once again your tact leaves much to be desired." His insensitive (yet honest) comment earned him a smack from his girlfriend who then stepped over to coo comfortingly over Hermione.

As the pretty blonde witch made her way toward her, Hermione was unwaveringly grateful that they were friends now or this would be a form of torture she'd rather do without. Not only did it make things easier for her to be with her best friends, since they were almost always with their significant others, but she found that the other witch wasn't _too_ terrible to be around - even if they had few mutual interests. Thankfully, Lavender had changed a great deal from the gossip-hungry beauty queen she had been in school - though war tended to have that affect on people. Lavender's maturity enabled her and Hermione to actually get along throughout recent years without the petty snarkiness and thinly veiled dislike that used to lace their interactions.

It also helped that Lavender knew Hermione had no romantic interest in Ron whatsoever.

But she found, just because she liked the girl now, didn't mean she wanted her hand stuck to her face. She didn't particularly want _anyone_ touching her at the moment and she shuddered with dread at the amount of hugging that would inevitably come her way. Goose pimples erupted as her skin practically crawled with the image.

In fact, it made her positively ill.

"It's best you don't touch, Lav. I'm not quite sure what it is that's wrong but if it's the flu then I don't want any of you to catch it. I really shouldn't be here actually," she mumbled. "It wasn't this bad this morning, only a slight headache." One she had taken a potion for, fat lot of good that it did.

The young woman sighed and contemplated returning back through the fireplace to the small comfort of her flat. Her _empty_ flat. But it was Sunday and that meant the weekly Weasley luncheon. This particular Sunday though happened to be the only Sunday of the month that everyone was going to be able to be here. Charlie would be present, albeit reluctantly due to Molly and her overbearing tendencies to hen-peck with repetitive conversations of marriage and babies that nearly suffocated the perpetually single dragon tamer; and of course Harry, who upon the end of the war decided he wanted to see the world and immediately set off to travel once the majority of restorations were done, was making this Sunday his day as well.

 _Grin and bear it_ , she ordered herself.

If she left now then she wouldn't get to see him for another month and even though they wrote each other almost every other day, it wasn't the same. While she was happy that he was happy - he was getting to do what he wanted for once and she'd hex anyone who tried to interfere - she missed him terribly.

Sighing, she cast the jar of floo powder one last longing glance before staring resolutely ahead. She wasn't going to miss this. Not even when she should be in bed. Or dying.

Because she _really_ felt like dying now.

It'd been seconds, _mere seconds_ , from her small conversation with Lavender and her inner debate and she already felt so much worse. Her splitting headache had brought friends who were apparently quite angry with her for trying to have a good day.

And she was sweating.

She didn't even have to look at herself to know.

She knew it in the way that you were totally aware of something embarrassing but pretended to be oblivious so _of course_ it's the one thing you focus on. And she could feel it. Beads of it, small ones, dripping down her temples, annoying pinpricks of moisture on the open space of her forehead, and tickling the valley between her breasts. It was clearly too hot.

Scorching, really. She needed air.

Excusing herself with what she hoped passed for human words, Hermione carefully slipped between the confused and concerned couple and made her way to the door, fumbling with the knob before stumbling through and out into the bright afternoon.

 _Son of a -_

Sunlight hit her the way a pillow wouldn't but a sledgehammer might.

Hermione tumbled down the stairs, knees jarring with the grassy impact. She might've sprained her wrist when her weight fell forward too fast but the sharp pain was drowned out by sudden and all encompassing itchiness.

Her skin was alive.

That was the only explanation. Or there was something moving, living, _under_ her flesh.

She had to get it out. Had to. Had to get it out, out, out _getitoutgetitout-!_

"'Mione!" Ginny's frantic shout was echoed by a myriad of voices but she couldn't specifically pinpoint who said what. They were talking too fast and too loud and the pounding behind her eyes was getting worse, she could barely keep them open.

Two thumps signaled bodies landing on either side of her bent form. Hands hovered over her bent back, vibrating with tension and the need to touch but hesitated when a garbled 'no' pushed past a newly sore throat.

 _Gods, what is wrong with me?!_

She'd never been like this. Only the Cruciatus compared and this - whatever it was - was fast surpassing it.

Everything hurt.

 _Gross understatement._

She was sure there was a curse to burn someone alive from the inside out, she just couldn't remember it or how she could have possibly received it. But that wouldn't explain the itching. Or the strange high pitch keening trying to make its way out her mouth.

Hermione grunted, a heavy sound as her fingertips started tingling. And by tingling she meant she was being bitten. By ants. Had to be. There _must_ have been, so many little tiny _angry_ red ones constantly biting and biting and biting and -

"Granger _."_ _Blaise_.

 _Slytherin. Ginny's boyfriend. Healer._

 _Thank Merlin._

"Blaise. What -" Top teeth met bottom teeth in a grinding and screeching halt of speech as she tried to block the scream that rode a new wave of pain.

She _ached._

Briefly, she wondered if it were feasible for human bones to spontaneously change density. Of course she knew it to be _impossible_ but that's what it felt like. Various parts of her body were suddenly lighter, then growing heavy again. It was happening rapidly and her chest heaved as air rushed through flared nostrils.

All potential possibilities and responses evaporated; everything other than _it hurt._

 _Breathe,_ her mind whispered, trying to sift through the conscious thoughts rife with agony to find the still functioning part of her.

 _Identify. Isolate. Trap. Store._

The mantra from a therapy session long since ended for lingering terrors looped through her mind. She concentrated as best as she could through the kaleidoscope of pain, gathering up and folding, layering, and binding pockets of identified torment before shoving the roughly made mental books into a cardboard box in a dark corner of her mind. It would last minutes at most but it would be enough. The pain was still there but it was dampened to where she could communicate without screaming.

 _Hopefully._

"- be impossible!"

Hermione peeked up through a curtain of sweat soaked wild hair to see Blaise and Ginny standing in front of her. Ginny was turned toward the yard, facing the rest of the Weasley family while Blaise was looking at her, hovering between indecision. Surprisingly, Fleur was seated to her left, murmuring softly in French.

"What's impossible?" _Sweet Circe, is that_ my _voice?_

It was almost indistinguishable. If she had swallowed gravel it would have sounded better than whatever it was that just came out.

Blaise immediately crouched down, tiny lines etched into dark skin crinkled as his eyes tightened with worry.

"Are you Muggle-born?" The urgency in his voice coupled with the bizarrely unexpected question startled her and Ginny tried to calm down the horde of angry Weasley that reacted badly.

"I don't understand. Is that why I'm sick?" He looked as if he wanted to touch her, shake her really, but instead he only spoke faster though his tone never changed and the volume stayed low.

"Yes and no. I believe I know what's happening but it's physically impossible given your heritage."

 _A virus untransmittable to Muggle-borns? Did such a thing truly exist?_

"Well, I'm adopted." Gasps rang out through the open space but Blaise didn't react like the others. She was taken aback as he swore violently, Ginny's hair whipping with the force of her turn, mouth open in shock. The Italian was normally extremely composed and very rarely used any sort of profanity. At least in English. To hear him swear now, especially in front of so many people made Hermione's chest tight.

"Do you know _anything_ about your birth parents? Your ancestry? Where they came from? Were any of them from magical blood?" It came out closer to an interrogation and almost faster than she could comprehend because the pain was coming back. Siphoning slowly from small holes in her mental cardboard construct.

"Greece," she whispered. "There was nothing - _is_ nothing. My parents -" she moaned, clenching her fists to avoid tearing at the skin of her arms which _burned_ now. "I was found. No papers. Put in orphanage." Scarlet half-moons appeared on her palms from nails dug in too deep. "Adoption went through in Greece, not England."

" _Fuck!_ Fleur, you already know what to do. Ginny! I need you to floo to St. Mungo's, tell them Healer Zabini is on his way and we need Containment Room Alpha." Hermione didn't need to look up to know everyone was confused and horrified all at once - she was too. The only person who seemed to understand and be fine with the orders barked out was Fleur, who was now humming loudly next to her head. Strangely enough, Hermione found her breathing slowing down with the sound.

It reminded her oddly of purring.

" _Containment room?"_ Molly shrieked and a part of Hermione wailed at the grating sound. Fleur seemed to get louder as Blaise tried to prevent the inevitable rising tide of obnoxious third-degree from the family of redheads.

"We don't have time for this! She's transforming -" the unmistakable crack of apparition cut off Blaise's stressed response and she _hated it._

She was _dying_ and she wanted it to end. _Now._ Her entire body hurt and she _couldn't take it anymore!_

The burning itch under her skin increased to an unmanageable degree and she cried out. Arms bare due to her summer top, Hermione wasted no time in ravaging her own bronze flesh. Sticky warmth coated her fingers as she trailed sharp nails down the plains of her forearms.

 _I will get it out. Whatever it is - it will stop NOW._

Fleur screamed next to her but she didn't care. The itching _didn't stop._ It got worse. _Burrowing._ It _was_ something under her skin. She would find it. She would. She would get it out. _All of it._

" _Hermione!_ "

All movement ceased.

She knew that voice, even worried as it was.

 _Harry._

And just as quickly, the pounding in her head vanished.

Her skin still itched and the strange and uncomfortable ache in her bones was still present but the light no longer hurt her eyes and the rushed voices that trailed after his arrival didn't make her want to hide her head underground.

Breathing was easier too and she wasn't so nauseous. Ailments she didn't know she had were gone now; like the hole in her chest. She had been missing something, couldn't find it, but she didn't feel that now. That emptiness, _despair_ , was gone. The loneliness she didn't understand while she had been smothered under the blanket of physical pain wasn't an issue anymore.

Relieved but incredibly disconcerted, and slightly annoyed, Hermione finally lifted her head since tripping through the door.

Fierce emerald eyes caught hers and held. Her body sagged against Fleur unexpectedly as her lungs deflated, a contented sigh flowing through cracked and bloodied lips.

She didn't care about anything anymore. Couldn't be bothered to. Harry was here and she wasn't sure why that brought such comfort but he would make it alright, she just knew _._

Breath rattled in her ivory cage as clarity struck, simultaneously damning and freeing from one lung full of air to the next.

She needed him.

Needed him as she needed the blood flowing through her veins. Couldn't breathe without him, _didn't want to._ Needed to though, needed his scent. Around her, on her. _Him. Only him._ Dry lips parted and nostrils flared as she finally broke eye contact. Oxygen gathered in the cavern of her mouth, balancing on her tongue for her to taste - _taste him._

Hooded eyes traced newly tanned features, roaming over things she'd already memorized but needed to again. His unfairly long lashes, straight nose, sculpted cheek bones, and defined jaw; she noticed that as he aged, the more prominent the aristocratic features from his Potter and Black bloodlines became. She passed over them and down her sight traveled, down, down, along his neck, along the vein she could see thrumming with his pulse and she desperately wished to match her heartbeat to his. _So close. Need him. Only him._ And still her eyes marveled, all in the span of seconds, barely any time at all and yet it stood still for her. Her gaze drifted lazily over wide shoulders, wider than she remembered, before wandering lower. Hard muscle under-

A pale hand.

 _A pale hand._

 _Touching him._

Untempered fury filled her, every corner of her being now alight with rage, body ablaze again but this time it was different. She nearly doubled over with the strength of the tempest brought on by _the hand_ currently curled tightly over Harry's bicep. Hermione could feel people grabbing at her from the sides but she screamed, a terrifying inhuman roar that morphed into something distinctly _other._ More people were yelling now but she cared not.

The pressure on her arms disappeared as she threw off those trying to contain her, molten brown never leaving the couple in front of her as her sight sharpened considerably.

The still splayed fingers on his arm signified what she _could not allow._

Possession.

" _Mine!"_


	2. Chapter 2

Hello all! THANK YOU to everyone who favorited, followed, and reviewed! Holy balls.

Here's the second update, so sorry for the wait but I've been sitting on this one wondering if I should keep going or just post it how it is now... the latter won out so it's here but it's short.

We get a taste of what the plot is kind of going to look like, or at least some elements. They're far-fetched (of course) but I'm going to do my best to make it sound plausible - becasue why not? Eventually I'll be playing with Greek mythology too so if you have some ideas on what I might be doing, I'd love to hear! Or if you think this won't work lol I'll hear those too. All opinions welcome.

And I promise I'll get to you reviewers! You are everything, so thank you! I'm just a little slow. xx

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CHAPTER TWO

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Chaos and feathers erupted.

Shocked screams were drowned out by the furious eagle-screech.

The human that had once been Hermione Granger was gone. In her place stood something not unknown to the Wizarding world, but was certainly unexpected in this instance.

Sickeningly sharp talons glinted in the sunlight, reflecting tiny spots of light upon the grass and the stunned occupants of the Burrow. Blood flecked bronze feathers covered her arms, blending seamlessly into darker plumage as they moved toward her shoulders. Golden yellow eyes stood out amongst the small soft black feathers that covered her face, an obsidian beak curving dangerously where a nose and mouth once were. The young woman's chestnut curls floated and writhed about, weaving in the breeze like a halo of snakes.

A hiss cut through the tension as the newly transformed Veela crouched, massive midnight wings flaring behind her in a display of dominance.

"Blaise!"

"I see it." Fleur's rushed whisper was quiet and heavily accented but the awe with which it was said was easily recognized, as was the reverence that coated Blaise's reply.

Keeping their eyes on the Veela but refusing to meet her penetrating gaze, they both kneeled, ever so slowly sinking to the ground.

"What are you-"

"Quiet!" Ron's mouth snapped shut audibly at the French woman's terse order.

She knew if they weren't careful this could end up much bloodier with much heavier consequences than any of them were ready for.

"We will explain it the best we can at the moment but please, _please_ , follow our direction with as little protest as possible." Her eyes never left their spot on Hermione's right shoulder but she took the continued silence as affirmation of her request. "Everyone must kneel. _Slowly!_ " She urged before George went to flop indignitly onto the grass. A low growl rumbled somewhere behind her and her heartbeat increased as the shining yellow eyes of the creature narrowed onto her mate.

If it were any other circumstance, Fleur would have made her own defense against the threat to her husband but she couldn't, not now. The Veela inside her could not move against one so high. So the blonde woman tilted her head to the side, baring her neck in a greater show of submission and vulnerability to bring the attention back to her.

It worked, and as those unblinking eyes bored into hers, she pleaded to her partner. "Bill, breathe _mon chéri_. I am fine. I am in no danger at present but I will be if you do not kneel." She could almost taste the desperation on her tongue, breath caught, captured, as hope lay heavy in her chest for her mate to obey her instruction, even though she knew his wolfish instincts would be fighting his conscious thought.

A soft huff and the gentle scuff of a body landing on the grass had the air she held in expelling out into a grateful sigh. The rest of the Weasley's followed suit almost immediately.

Fleur chanced a small glance behind her to find the source of both the problem and the solution.

Harry Potter had apparated in with the hand of a strange woman wrapped around him for side-along. Normally this would not be an issue, but then again, no one could have predicted the day's events.

She noticed that they were both kneeling and were no longer touching. Something unclenched within her chest - the probability of someone becoming seriously injured had just lessened.

She wasn't sure if Harry knew he was the catalyst or not - she knew he wasn't as daft as people tended to believe and was far more observant than most.

"Will someone please explain why we're all on bended knee for Granger?" George's hushed voice asked. He had finally caught on that this was a bit more serious than he anticipated.

"Condensed version: Hermione is a descendant from an ancient Veela line long since believed to be extinct." Blaise's voice was just loud enough for everyone to hear but gentle enough to not upset the woman in front of them.

The resulting silence, however, was awkwardly loud, no one quite knowing how to deal with the unbelievable explanation.

Until finally - " _what the bloody-_ "

"How do you know that?" Ron's poorly timed reaction was thankfully cut short by Ginny's less offensive interruption and the sharp smack of her palm over his mouth.

It was Fleur who answered. "Look on her forehead, just below her hairline. Do you see anything different?"

"The weird line of feathers?" Charlie's voice was rough and unsure in the quiet.

Both she and Blaise nodded. "This is just one characteristic of many, but yes. They are small now, she is young and new to her position. As she ages, they will grow in bright jewel tones and sit as a crown would on a human."

"What exactly does that mean?" Harry asked. This was the first time he'd spoken since he arrived and the reaction was instantaneous.

Hermione seemingly forgot about the gathering of so many people, and a bright, cheerful trilling burst out of her beak as she zeroed in on the raven haired man.

She stood from her crouched position, wings fluttering as they folded in behind her. She continued to make small chirping noises, dipping her head in Harry's direction, arms hanging limp at her sides, nails-turned-claws facing behind her, away from everyone.

"Harry," Fleur subtly turned to him but kept most of her body facing Hermione. "Go to her."

The young man started, green eyes wide but focused on the changed form of his best friend.

"Please, Harry. She won't hurt you but you are the only one that can possibly calm her enough to turn back." She shared a look with Blaise, who was slowly edging closer to Ginny as she and Lavender attempted, very discreetly, to calm a red faced Ron. "Once Hermione is back, we will explain everything. However, our priority right now is to keep her relaxed and make sure she feels safe."

He heard what she wasn't saying, if the quick sharp look in her direction was any indication.

"You think I'm her mate?" His tone was guarded but there was an edge to his stare now that belied his voice.

"Yes." Fleur and Blaise answered simultaneously, both clearly adamant.

He hesitated for only a moment before steadily getting to his feet and moving to the front of the group. The woman near him didn't try to stop him as he left; whether she knew what would happen or not, Fleur was thankful this mystery guest did not provoke Hermione further.

Surprisingly - or perhaps not when one really thought about it - there was no uncertainty in his steps, no wavering strides or halted movement as he made his way to the Veela.

They waited, all of them, with an unspoken warning not to interfere.

It was almost too much to look at Hermione as she stared at Harry coming closer and closer toward her.

Fleur understood; wholly and completely. She was probably the only one that truly grasped the emotion that was pouring through the younger woman. Even Blaise, with all his knowledge of his family's ancestry, had no true understanding because the Veela was not dominant in him.

Everyone else was most likely either uncomfortable or envious of the feelings they could see.

Like devotion. It was the way her shoulders crumpled, the slow melt of her body into his once he got close enough. And adoration. So blatant and open in her gold irises that they glowed with untamed contentment.

"Hey 'Mione," Harry said. His hand came up to thread through the wild curls under her ear, brushing against the incredibly soft feathers that covered her cheek. "Bet this wasn't part of any of your plans." He huffed out a laugh.

Hermione chirped once, a quick happy sound that dissolved into an almost-purr as she nuzzled her beak into the soft skin of his wrist, inhaling the smell of sun and sea and _home_.

Sharp inhales peppered the open air and the tension drained away as the creature smoothly blended back into the familiar classically pretty features of Hermione Granger; before she collapsed into the surprised arms of her best friend and newly discovered mate.


End file.
